


Paint by Numbers

by Runic



Series: Fire Emblem Non Explicit One Shots [18]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Wyverns, baby wyverns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26739949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runic/pseuds/Runic
Summary: Claude and Byleth participate in a festival tradition with their children, both human and wyvern.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Series: Fire Emblem Non Explicit One Shots [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1515215
Comments: 16
Kudos: 83





	Paint by Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> For shamanium Thank you for your support. 
> 
> Thank you to Mads for helping me look this over.

“Esfir, help Tessa with that jar, please.”

“Yes, mama.” The younger of Byleth’s twin sons stepped over to his little sister, taking the other side of the pot she was struggling to carry.

“No, Esfir! I have!” Tessa protested in her tiny voice.

“I’m just helping, Tessy,” Esfir tried to reason with her. “I’m not taking it from you.”

Tessa continued to pout, until Claude stepped beside her, her face immediately transforming into a brilliant smile. “Baba!”

“Let your brother help you, small bean,” Claude told her, placing a large hand on Tessa’s head and ruffling her hair. “You don’t want to drop the paint we worked so hard to make, do you?”

Tessa swatted at her father’s hands, leaving the jar she had held completely in Esfir’s grip. “Baba! Stop it!” 

Rushing footfalls caught the family’s attention as Eskander, Esfir’s twin, ran into the room. He had to grab onto the doorframe to stop his momentum. “Come on! We’re going to miss it!”

Tessa looked up at Claude with wide worried eyes, but Claude just shook his head and picked his daughter up. “They would not start without us. Still,” he paused to boop a finger against her nose, grinning as Tessa giggled, “it would be rude to keep them waiting.”

Eskander opened his mouth, about to whine at how long his family was taking, but Esfir pulled on his twin’s braid and pointed to the jars of paint he and Byleth held. Still looking somewhat put out, Eskander began to help his brother and mother. He did soften, straightening with pride when Byleth said in her soft tone, “Thank you, Eskander.”

Together the royal family made their way outside, into the light and laughter that marked the festival day. Already people walked around with dabs of paint on their fingers and faces. As they drew closer to the stable grounds the grumbles and trills of wyverns were added into the mix. 

Eskander ran forward, paint sloshing over the edges of his jar. “Hey!” Claude shouted after him. 

“Why are you surprised?” Esfir asked in the same bored tone Byleth used when dealing with a particularly uninteresting noble request. “He does this every time.”

Claude was much too busy with his struggling daughter to answer. The second he leaned down Tessa jumped from his arms and chased after her brother, thick curls bouncing around her face. She ran headfirst into baby wyvern demonstrating the same levels of enthusiasm as she was, the two knocking each other over. Tessa giggled, sitting there in the dirt without a care, while the wyvern scrambled back up and crawled into her lap. It butted its head against the tiny princess, demanding pets.

“Here,” Esfir said softly, kneeling next to his sister and showing her how to dip her fingers in the paint. He held her hand steady as they marked a pale blue line down the wyvern’s snout. The hatchling went cross eyed, cooing in confusion as it attempted to get a look at its new markings.

Claude laughed as they came up beside their daughter, more tiny wyverns coming to surround them. “You look like you’ve had a time of it, old girl.”

His large white wyvern, verteran of numerous battles, lay in the middle of her pasture, wings outstretched to sunbathe. She was surrounded by hatchlings who crawled over and around her, both from her current nesting and the previous one two years ago. She grumbled at Claude, but her eyes dropped closed as he scratched her snout. She lifted her large head, butting it against Claude’s chest, her grumbling turning to a purr.

“Eskander,” Claude called, summoning his son who was currently rolling in the dirt with his own dark scaled wyvern. Eskander shot to his feet and brought over a jar of paint to his father, the bright yellow Byleth had mixed with her own hands. The wyvern kept still as Claude scratched her chin with one hand, the other dipping into the paint. He carefully drew the crest of Riegan onto her forehead, her horde of children chirping away at him as they crawled between his feet.

Byleth sank to the ground and was immediately swarmed. She picked one up and cuddled it against her chest, painting purple swirls down its back. It wiggled in her grasp, trying to get a look, while the rest of its brothers and sisters chirped and leaned in to watch. “Are you all giving your mother a hard time?” she asked the lot of them. “Of course you are. You’re all nearly as much of a handful as my own.” Byleth scratched beneath the hatchling’s chin before releasing it and picking up another.

Tessa trotted over to Byleth, struggling to walk with the weight of her hatchling in her arms. It was nearly as big as the young girl, and she was left with no other choice but to waddle should she wish to get anywhere. Its feet were completely blue as well as the tip of its tail, multiple tiny handprints across the length of it. 

Esfir was standing off to the side with his own wyvern, a mirror of the one Eskander was rolling around with earlier, and calmly painting much more intricate designs onto its scales than anyone else was managing. Of course, that was right up until Eskander and his wyvern tackled their brothers. Eskander laughed as Esfir cursed, Byleth watching Claude’s eyebrows shoot up but decided to let it go for once. His wyvern lifted her head to glower at them, whipping her tail at them when they rolled too close. 

The white wyvern shook her large body as she got to her feet, scattering her children as she brushed past Claude and padded her way over to Byleth. Tessa gasped happily as the wyvern passed her, pausing to sniff at her hair. 

“Hey there, old girl,” Byleth greeted as the white wyvern lowered her head into Byleth’s hands, nuzzling the tip of her nose against Byleth’s belly. “You always are the first one who can tell.”

The white wyvern huffed, allowing Byleth to add her own swirling colored designs around Claude’s. Esfir and Eskander managed to get back to their feet, Esfir pulling on his brother’s braid once more for good measure, and followed their father over to where Byleth sat. Tessa scooted closer, her skirts becoming covered with another fine layer of dust, watching with wide eyes as her mother worked. 

“Where is your paint, sweetheart?” she asked Tessa. 

Tessa looked back to where she had run into the hatchling, Byleth following her gaze until she saw her daughter’s jar, tipped over with bright blue paint spilling from it. “Ah, I see. Well then, here.” She took her daughter’s hand, dipping it into her own dark purple mixture, and set it against the white scales. The wyvern snorted lightly, making her own series of answering noises as Tessa squealed happily and let go of her hatchling to place a series of handprints all over her father’s wyvern. 

“Come on, boys,” Claude urged. The three of them began to paint their own designs along the wyvern’s other flank, Claude working his way back up until he was beside Byleth. 

He wrapped an arm around her, kissing her temple as Tessa grabbed onto the wyvern’s tail and began to climb up her back. The twins rushed to their sister to help before she could fall off, Tessa shouting triumphantly when she was on the wyvern’s back. “Look, Baba! I’m you!”

Claude laughed, bright and clear. Byleth was unable to stop her own mirth from spilling out at the sound. “You’re going to be a wonderful wyvern rider, small bean.”

Tessa beamed with pride, planting both hands on the wyvern’s back and nodding in satisfaction at her work. 

Claude turned his head back to kiss Byleth’s cheek. “As for you,” he whispered, “she hasn’t done that since you were pregnant with Tessa. Are we…?” He trailed off, the rest of his question not needing to be said.

Byleth leaned into him and nodded, making one last mark of purple as she scratched the wyvern’s chin. “Next year we’ll need another color.”


End file.
